Thanks for signing up! You might also like these other newsletters:

More than a romantic sentiment, a broken heart may be physically possible, according to the findings of a recent study. An international group of researchers interviewed nearly 2,000 people hospitalized after a heart attack. One of the questions they asked was whether a loved one had died within the past six months. Based on the participants’ responses, the researchers were able to calculate that heart attack risk rises to as much as 21 times higher than normal within the first day after the death of a loved one and six times higher during that first week. The risk, they found, remains elevated for at least a month.

“There is great data to show that in times of crisis, the incidences of heart attacks increase,” says Tracy Stevens, MD, a cardiologist at St. Luke's Mid America Heart Institute in Kansas City, Mo. and a spokeswoman for the American Heart Association, which published the study in its journal Circulation.

Grief Heart Attacks: How They Happen

How can a broken heart, an emotional reaction, trigger a potentially fatal physical one? When you’re feeling stressed, your body steps up its production of the stress hormones adrenaline and cortisol. It’s your flight-or-fight response, explains Dr. Stevens. The adrenaline helps you prepare to face what your body perceives as danger (fight) or escape from the danger (flight). Your body doesn’t seem to know the difference between danger and stress.

This increase in stress hormones can:

Stimulate your heart

Raise your blood pressure

Constrict your small blood vessels

When your heart is over-stimulated, your heartbeat can get out of whack, and abnormal heart rhythms can lead to a heart attack. A few different mechanisms are at work. When you have high blood pressure, it puts undue stress on the walls of your blood vessels.

Adrenaline can cause plaque that has built up in your arteries to rupture, and ruptured plaque is a major cause of heart attacks and stroke, Stevens says. “The body sees that rupture as a cut and wants to heal it,” she explains. “It immediately forms a clot at the site of the rupture, and that’s what triggers the heart attack or stroke, depending on what area the artery where the rupture occurred is supplying.”

Cortisol stimulates the production of fat in your stomach, and as that fat accumulates around inner organs, other organs, including the heart, can suffer. “Fat in our abdomen can create an inflammatory state, which makes our plaque rupture as well,” Stevens says.

Women over 55 are much more likely to suffer from broken heart syndrome than men, according to research presented at a meeting of the American Heart Association.

Emotional Stress and Heart Disease

How you respond to your loss also can contribute to heart disease. Some people react to sad news by overeating, trying to find comfort in food. Others don’t eat at all. “Both are unhealthy situations for your heart,” Stevens says.

When you have that brokenhearted feeling, you may have trouble sleeping, too. You might be up crying at night and then be too exhausted to exercise. It’s an unhealthy cycle that can lead to a weakened immune system and an increased chance of death, particularly from heart disease. “Sleep disorders carry with them a cardiovascular risk,” Stevens says. Another recent study in Circulation found that the risk for a heart attack in people who had trouble sleeping is 27 to 45 percent greater than it is in people who get the sleep they need.

Preventing Heart Attacks While Grieving

How you heal your broken heart can help protect you from a heart attack:

Reach out for support. You might find comfort being around friends and family. Joining a bereavement support group might provide a different kind of solace, as you’re able to share your grief with others facing a similar situation.

Talk to your doctor. Your doctor may suggest temporarily taking medication to help you overcome your grief. It’s also important to take good care of yourself so your own illness doesn’t add to your grief.

Know heart attack symptoms. If you experience symptoms of a heart attack, such as chest discomfort, shortness of breath, nausea, cold sweats, dizziness, or stomach pain, get help immediately.

Grief is a process few, if any, people can avoid — finding ways to cope with it can make it easier on you both emotionally and physically.